As someone who uses more water than most people, would it be irresponsible for me to move to a dry climate?
I realized that I’ve been entirely leaving the southwest United States off of my list of options for where to live after I graduate college, because I’d decided when I was much younger that I shouldn’t live in the desert. Now, I’m realizing that I have very little idea how important that is compared to other concerns. I’m not sure how to go about weighing the utility of an additional person using too much water in the desert.
I probably use 2-3 times more water than most people, if you don’t include things like lawns and car washes. (It’s mainly from showers and washing my hands, probably because it takes me longer than normal to feel clean. I also need an extra load of laundry once a week to keep the dust out of my sheets, because of an allergy.)
This is the kind of thing where economic measures are useful. For political reasons you may not get a true cost for residential water, but maybe see how much industries in that area are paying per litre? Then you can calculate the dollar value you’d be imposing by living there, and compare it with the value you put on other differences between the places you’re choosing from.
That was pretty much my intuition too, once I actually thought about it.
For context, this is on my mind because I’m graduating from college in a year. I’m still figuring out my values and their relative importances. (I’m going to make a post about it later, if I’m still unsure after talking it over with myself and my friends.) I’ve heard that the Southwest has a lower cost of living than the rest of the country, and some areas have nice weather, but beyond that I don’t know a whole lot about what it’s like living there. (I’m on study abroad in Sydney now, and noticing that I go outside more when in an interesting neighborhood with nice weather.)
At the moment, all the cities near the top of my mental list are in the northeast US. I’m pretty sure that’s at least partly because that’s the only region I’ve stayed in for more than a couple weeks at a time, and I’m slightly homesick at the moment. Probably what I should do is do a bit of research now and write down what I’m thinking, and then come back to it once I’ve come back to my hometown and had some time to get bored of it, and maybe again during my last semester of college. It’s probably not worth trying to evaluate places out of driving distance of Pennsylvania until I stop being homesick, now that I think of it that way.
As someone who uses more water than most people, would it be irresponsible for me to move to a dry climate?
I realized that I’ve been entirely leaving the southwest United States off of my list of options for where to live after I graduate college, because I’d decided when I was much younger that I shouldn’t live in the desert. Now, I’m realizing that I have very little idea how important that is compared to other concerns. I’m not sure how to go about weighing the utility of an additional person using too much water in the desert.
I probably use 2-3 times more water than most people, if you don’t include things like lawns and car washes. (It’s mainly from showers and washing my hands, probably because it takes me longer than normal to feel clean. I also need an extra load of laundry once a week to keep the dust out of my sheets, because of an allergy.)
This is the kind of thing where economic measures are useful. For political reasons you may not get a true cost for residential water, but maybe see how much industries in that area are paying per litre? Then you can calculate the dollar value you’d be imposing by living there, and compare it with the value you put on other differences between the places you’re choosing from.
I see how that would work. Thanks.
I doubt that using 2-3 times more water would end up being the dominant factor in whether you should move.
What other factors exist that you’re considering? Is there a possibility of making more money in the dry climate?
That was pretty much my intuition too, once I actually thought about it.
For context, this is on my mind because I’m graduating from college in a year. I’m still figuring out my values and their relative importances. (I’m going to make a post about it later, if I’m still unsure after talking it over with myself and my friends.) I’ve heard that the Southwest has a lower cost of living than the rest of the country, and some areas have nice weather, but beyond that I don’t know a whole lot about what it’s like living there. (I’m on study abroad in Sydney now, and noticing that I go outside more when in an interesting neighborhood with nice weather.)
At the moment, all the cities near the top of my mental list are in the northeast US. I’m pretty sure that’s at least partly because that’s the only region I’ve stayed in for more than a couple weeks at a time, and I’m slightly homesick at the moment. Probably what I should do is do a bit of research now and write down what I’m thinking, and then come back to it once I’ve come back to my hometown and had some time to get bored of it, and maybe again during my last semester of college. It’s probably not worth trying to evaluate places out of driving distance of Pennsylvania until I stop being homesick, now that I think of it that way.
Welcome to the club.